“One thing I learned from teaching on-line this past spring: Build the entire course before the term begins“: This week, we feature a blog post from faculty member Phil Nel who takes his readers behind the scenes as he creates an online version of ENGL 545 “Literature for Adolescents” for Fall 2018.
The English Department at Kansas State has several courses which we offer online, most of which also run as traditional face-to-face courses. Our online course offerings have been motivated by the university’s growing commitment to online degree completion and online degree programs, by student request, and by faculty interest in developing online courses.
For instance, we have been offering ENGL 758 “Scientific Communication” online three times a year (fall, spring, and summer semesters) for over 10 years in response to a request from colleagues in the Graduate Program in Food Science. A year ago, following student demand, we added an online offering of ENGL 417 “Written Communication for the Workplace,” a required professional writing course for students in the College of Business and an elective course for others. Our most recent addition in Spring 2018 was ENGL 384 “Multicultural Children’s Literature,” a course that fulfills a requirement for our new undergraduate minor in Children’s Literature.
As Phil’s blog post demonstrates, teaching a course online challenges instructors to translate their current classroom strategies for the pace and space of an asynchronous classroom. Take a look behind the scenes, as he starts building his class for the fall semester: http://www.philnel.com/2018/05/31/literature-for-adolescents-on-line/.
— Karin Westman, Associate Professor and Department Head
K-State English 